Take Me to Your Blackened Sky
by eden alice
Summary: 'He glows faintly, like a tired firefly.'
1. Chapter 1

Take Me to Your Blackened Sky

The day after Liam's funeral Carla hides in bed for most of the day and pretends to sleep. In the morning Tony kisses her on the lips and whispers that eventually things will seem better. Her breath catches in her throat a little when his lips touch hers but if he notices she was awake he does not say a word.

With her eyes closed the rustling of Tony pulling on his suit seem impossibly loud and when she hears the sharp tap of his shoes and the shutting of the front door she breathes a little easier. Her fiancé can go to work and do the things that used to seem so important to her. The world suddenly feels hollow and never ending so she decides to stay in the twilight of sleep for as long as possible because she does not want to face her life without him.

A few hours later, she's not sure how many, her muscles are tight and jump involuntary so she pads on bare feet to her kitchen and finds a bottle of sleeping pills tucked in the same cupboard as the tinned soup. She has no idea why they were kept there.

Liam is leaning against the wall between her kitchen and her spiral staircase.

She freezes in horror for a moment dropping her glass of water so that it shatters against the floor. Then she ignores him as he watches her clean the mess and takes one too many tablets before closing her bedroom door tightly behind herself. She resolutely refuses to go insane when she's still coming to terms with letting him go.

She tries not to think about the way she can see the kitchen tiles through his toes as she drifts into a restless sleep.

* * *

When Tony arrives home he hovers and fusses and yet is oddly distant in a way that might hurt her if it was any other day. He disappears to make dinner and tells her sternly that she has to keep eating.

It takes her ten minuets to sum up the courage to enter the main room of her flat. In the corner of her eye she can still see him leaning back against the monochrome of her sofa, the pattern still visible through his silly t-shirt. Instead she sits at the table and studies the pasta on her plate and the darkness of her wine.

Tony talks to her and she gives the appropriate replies and it's clear they are the only two people in the room. Yet she can still feel an old familiar pair of eyes on the back of her head.

She excuses herself to the bathroom.

This is fine, she tells her reflection, this is normal. This is the grieving process. She rests her head on the sink, porcelain soothing her cheek and wishes both of them away.

"You are not real." She tells Liam when she comes out. He is standing in the doorway, the brick work of the wall visible through his broad shoulders. Tony is busy clearing up and doesn't hear.

She crawls into bed and shuts of the light. She can hear her fiancés hushed tones on the phone and in the darkness she can still see Liam. He glows faintly, like a tired firefly.

She closes her eyes.

* * *

She wakes up with Tony asleep besides her and Liam still watching her from a chair. "You don't exist." She accuses but goes to the bathroom to change anyway.

He is still there when she drinks her coffee and puts on her make-up. He doesn't even move then Tony walks so close they almost touch.

She goes into work with Tony and when they return home he is still there.

* * *

A week later she still sees him everywhere around her home and she is resolved to her madness but at least she doesn't have to let go completely.

The radio turns on by itself one day but she knows it's him.

_Ever think what your eyes do they're trying to sleep  
But where your tongue rests, is it against your teeth_

And now it's bigger than us  
It's bigger than everything it decides to touch

Asleep is the safest place you could be  
You can try hard to catch it, it just catches you  
Imagine a camera coming up from your feet  
Relax all your muscles son just hope your hearts in one piece

And now it's bigger than us  
It's bigger than everything it decides to touch  
It's bigger than a halo, a devil, an angel and a crow

The bones got the wrong detail I hoped it would have  
Safe for a shin bone or even a hand

Plays before Tony turns it off and pulls her into a hug because her eyes grow glossy with un-cried tears. She is brittle in his arms; cheek pressed against the starch of his shirt and wonders if there is something beyond her understanding.

She sneaks a peek over Tony's shoulder. Liam looks so darkly angry he almost could be solid again.


	2. Chapter 2

She's washing lettuce when it happens again, her limited culinary skills just about stretching to a salad. He is perched on her kitchen counter with the dark marble pattern showing through his thighs.

_You know, Car, the least you could do is acknowledge my presence._

He is wearing the silly hoodie he died in, a mask of her fiancés face clutched I his hands. Carla can see blood dripping on the dark stubble of his jaw, spilling starkly on the paleness of his throat.

She drops the lettuce.

_After all, I have managed to contact you from beyond the grave._

Carla picks up the lettuce and puts it on the cutting board. Walks to the bathroom. Locks the door. Sobs.

* * *

She wasn't with him when it happened. She was too late to yell at the paramedics, it was not her place to ride in the ambulance. She is not the one at his side in his last moments. There were no hospital rooms or bedsides vigils. She didn't even hold his hand.

Afterwards, she had not been allowed to see his body. Her imagination had conjured images up mixed them with memories of her dead husband's cold form. They did not let her say goodbye just like they had never let him be hers.

But she'd wanted to see him again. A chance to make amends for all the lies she left him with. (She wanted to climb up onto the table, curl herself around him. Just for a little. Just for a bit.)

She still has the newspaper report on the accident. Keeps it folded safely inside her pocket. Now she sits on the edge of the bathtub and reads it over and over again. The facts stark and unfeeling. The writer never met him. Her hands shake.

* * *

He is sitting on her bedspread when she comes out. The decadent shades of gold shows through his knuckles. The lamp shines through his head.

_I didn't mean to- Oh hell, Carla, I never meant to make you cry sweetheart._

Carla goes to the closet. Pulls out her dressing gown.

"You are not real," she says. "You are a figment of my imagination. I'm going insane" She lies down and shuts off the lamp.

Liam's smiles slashes across the darkness like a knife.

_I knew you'd say that._

He tries to convince her.

He talks incessantly. He offers up opinions about everything, from dinner to factory contracts. He stands backlit by the microwave and tries to seduce her into his way of thinking.

_You broke the heel of your boot clean off one time we all went to Ireland. And it was hollow, remember, with that weird Styrofoam filling inside and I said, Carla, if we ever needed to hide something this would be the perfect place, and you said, whatever you say Mr Bond, and I called you Mr Moneypenny for the rest of the day. Remember?_

The microwave beeps and Carla pulls out her instant dinner. She doesn't seem to have time to cook anymore. Doesn't like the intrusion of getting food delivered. Tony takes a work trip abroad (she thinks he did not want to leave her).

_You cry out for me in your sleep, Carla. All the time. Carla, please say something._

She settles in front of the TV with a tray. She picks at the peas first.


	3. Chapter 3

It starts as a complete accident. Carla is cutting carrots in the kitchen. Liam is somewhere in the living room, watching the football (she leaves the television on all the time now. Even when she's not watching it. Even when no one's watching it.)

When she slices herself with the knife, she yelps a little. Just a bit, just quietly, but enough that he hears anyway. There's a lot of blood, and when Carla sees the look of horror she opens her mouth without thinking.

"It's nothing Liam. I just nicked myself. It'll stop in a second."

She's rummaging for plasters in the bathroom cabinet when she realises. She spins around and there he is, lounging against the doorframe.

_Does this mean you're going to start talking to me?_

Carla can see the doorjamb through his ankles. "I-", she starts. He looks happy, ecstatic even. A big dopy grin on his face.

"You're dead," she spat finally. "I buried you."

Only she had not buried him, she had only watched from a safe distance. Bus she'd tried so hard to burry him inside her head.

And then she's crying too hard to speak. Crying and screaming that she hates him, she _hates _him.

(Because he _died_, he left _her_, with the whispers and the rumours and a man she didn't love, all of her memories of what could have been, a _working relationship_, the long looks, he gave her nothing but empty promises. Left her, with a gravestone she doesn't visit and a great love she never had.)

Liam looks on helplessly, standing half-in, half-out of the bathtub.

Eventually Carla slows. Quiets. His concerned face peers down at her, exactly the same as always, only now she can see bottles of shampoo through the curve of his jaw.

"Are you fucking haunting me?" she asks, finally.

Liam grins, a tiny Liam grin. _Looks that way._

Carla leans her head back against the tiles and laughs.

"How did you know I could see you?"

_You looked right at me, the first time. God, Car, you should have seen your face-_

"How did you get here?"

_Not sure, really. Don't remember much from, you know, immediately after._

"Is there a God?"

_I- I don't know._

"Heaven?"

_Your flats not that nice Carla-_

"Is Paul there?"

_I-_

"Am I dead too?"

_Oh Carla_

They talk until dawn the first night. Liam can't seem to get enough of it, is starved for human interaction. Carla curls into her pillows while he flits from the nightstand, to the dresser, to the closet, and back around to the foot of the bed.

_I'm not sure I can actually leave, you see. I can get around the flat complex – and I swear your second-floor neighbour's dog can see me, it barks like a mad thing whenever I get close – but whenever I try to follow you to the factory I just can't. Which is unfortunate, because if I should be haunting anything it really should be-_

"Liam," Carla says tiredly. It is five-thirty in the morning. "Come here. Sit."

He stops moving, looking sheepish. _Sorry. I've just- I can't exactly sit now. Its more of a hovering, you know?_

"Try," Carla orders, and pulls the covers up to her chin. Liam pauses by the window. Dawn filters through the blinds behind him. "Goodnight Liam."

_Night Carla._

He stares and stares as if she were the aberration.


	4. Chapter 4

She had been ignoring the phone calls so she really should have expected Tony to let himself into the flat one Thursday afternoon. Only the sight of his drawn face and straight lines of his suit almost make her drop her pen.

There was some game show blaring too loud from the television. It had annoyed Liam enough that he had disappeared into her (their, his, none felt right) bedroom.

Tony shrugs off his coat, drapes the heavy black fabric over the back of the sofa. Carla thinks it's strange that he seems so comfortable. She forgets he used to live with her. She forgets they were meant to be getting married.

Her engagement ring sits on the side of the sink. When she bathes Liam stares at it and practices trying to push it down the drain. He always sulks when it fails to move but his gaze softens at the sight of her naked wet skin (it exhausts him but the practice helps and his almost touch sends shivers through her too warm form).

"You haven't been to work all week love." His eyes are wide and she feels stuck and guilty under them.

"I've worked from home. Hayley's kept an eye on the girls for me." She replies evenly. If Liam didn't like watching (helping) her do paperwork and talking to clients she would have sold the factory weeks back.

"I've been talking to Michelle. We are all worried about you." He moves closer, talks like he hadn't heard her.

Behind her she feels the electric charged silence as Liam enters the room. He crackles like the threat of a storm. Carla does not need to turn to know Liam is angrier then he had ever been in life.

She swallows as something certain settles in her mind. Like a dream she had just remembered she thinks she might have known all along.

"I should have never gone away when you needed me. You are drowning in grief, sweetheart. You're a shell of the woman I love. I thought maybe you need space but I was wrong, you need me, you need to live, you need your husband." Tony draws closer. He kneels in front of her bringing them to almost equal heights and yet it seems as if he is a praying sacrifice at the feet of his god.

"Not yet." She whispers and a burst of rebellion hopes he notices her lack of ring.

Tony stares so intensely at her as he murmurs her name.

"Not in here," His voice is a soft rumble as he laces his long fingers with hers. He places their joined hands flat against his chest, above his heart. "Or in here." He finishes placing their hands in the same spot on her, just above her breasts.

In the corner of her eye she can see Liam act. Moving so fast he blurs almost solid as he screams and threatens and tells Tony not to touch her. She had never seen him so full with rage but all she can feel is the heat of Tony's touch. He burns her like fire and she thinks it is the sin consuming him from the inside out.

_You fucking evil bastard. Don't you touch her, don't you ever touch her! After everything you think you have a right-Carla, don't let him touch you._

She turns to face Liam, to reassure him that she understands now and that Tony could not possibly hurt her anymore than he already had. She doesn't fear death anymore.

Tony uses his free hand to forcefully turn her face back to him. Back to his eyes that had never looked so feverish and righteous in madness.

Liam actually growls.

"I would do anything for you my love. You have no idea what I have done for you." And everything Tony says sounds like a threat, maybe it always had.

Carla shakes with rage and guilt as she sharply pushes the living man away and stands as he falls on his arse. "I am not your love. I am not your anything. I see you. I know what you are." She hisses.

Tony stares up at her open mouthed and startled. They both jump when the television is suddenly silent after a loud pop. For one insane second Carla thinks her anger somehow did it till she notices the way Liam looks fainter in his exhaustion.

She thinks it's strange that Tony can't see his victim.

"Murder," The word rolls around in her throat and lungs as it gains power. The truth stark in the vacuum of silence.

Both the men look startled at her knowing their shared secret. She thinks Liam was trying to protect her by not revealing the truth. It seems strange that he doesn't seem angry with the other man because he killed him but then even after death he still had her heart.

"Carla, please listen to me. I did it for us. So we could be together because I love you so much there was never another way. Please listen." She likes how he begs even as she hates to words.

Liam stands close to her and her fingers twitch to hold his hand because she needs to show how sorry she is for her part in the whole mess. She thinks Tony should be able to see his victim standing over and judging him. She thinks he should be punished and driven insane but she wants Liam all to herself, wants not to have to hurt anymore.

Carla kicks Tony's feet from under him when he tries to stand. "I will never listen. You don't love me. You have no idea how to love. I want to tear that black little heart out of your chest and watch the light fade from your eyes-"

_They would take you away._

Liam's urgency breaks through the haze. She could not be apart from him. Not even for justice.

"But you are not even worth that kind of passion. You mean nothing to me."

Carla straddles the fallen man. Pulls his close by his shirt collar her knuckles turn white. The look in her eyes renders him silent as he cries.

"You are going to disappear from my life. It will be like you never existed. In fact why don't you go and get that hit man of yours to do you in? Since you would never be man enough to do it yourself."

_Let him go Carla._

She'd been thinking of how easy it would be to crush his windpipe and watch his eyes bulge even further out of his head but Liam sounds almost sad.

_Don't let his darkness infect you. We have each other now._

She knows he is right. Liam's calm conviction grounds her and she violently pushes Tony away. "Leave." She spits.

The killer stumbles out of the door.


	5. Chapter 5

**So this is finally the final chapter. I just want to thank everyone for reading and reviewing. Hope that people are still reading anyway as it takes me so long to actually finish a multi part story. Anyway hope you like it. I was unsure with the ending but it felt like the only way it could end. Thanks again.**

* * *

As the weeks pass, Carla goes into work less and less. Tony's solicitor signs the remaining percentage of ownership to her without any fuss. She hires a factory manager and pops in for weekly updates and only really goes out to meet with the occasional client. It just makes more sense to stay home, where she can have Liam's input. Besides he gets lonely without her. _(It's just so boring Car. Maybe if you had a dog. Or maybe fish if a dogs too big. Can't go wrong with fish. Hey, do you ever wonder why I ended up haunting your place and not mine? It would have been fun to finally get you in my bed. This place is too serious sometimes.)_

So she goes in Monday's to collect her work for the week and catch up, then leaves at noon. No one so much as glances at her askance anymore, although one day Hayley lays a heavy hand on her shoulder. She develops a routine, going out every Tuesday to collect groceries, Friday nights to negotiate new contracts and Wednesdays and Sundays for a run, but other than that she sticks close to the flat.

Eventually she buys a treadmill.

It takes her a while to work up the courage. But when he first dies she cursed herself and cursed herself, and the memory of that grief is just enough to make her do it, now that she can.

"I love you Liam. The night you died I lied because I thought it was for the best. But I never stopped loving you." It all rushes out once she opens her mouth.

Liam stops reading the comic section of the newspaper she's laid open for him, an indescribable expression on his face. At first Carla thinks she's made a huge mistake, that somehow the moments past and he no longer feels the same, and then-

_I love you too._

Later, he sits across from her as she eats dinner.

_Maybe you should go out. You know, like visit Chelle or to a movie or something._

Carla stares at him. "What would be the point?"

There is a moment where she thinks he might look stricken, but the pattern of the spiral staircase behind his face keeps her from reading his expression properly. When he next speaks his voice is cheerful enough.

_Yeah there wouldn't really be one._


End file.
